Updated by Selina
Today I made progress on the research of energy transformations in a rollercoaster. Findings and sources are as below.
The rollercoaster's total energy through the entire ride will be derived from its gravitational potential energy at the start of the ride. Make sure that the hills throughout the ride are not higher than the start as the rollercoaster would not have enough energy to climb the hills.
The rollercoaster will slowly lose its energy due to forces such as friction and air resistance. This allows the rollercoaster to stop without any assistance as all its energy is displaced from the forces. At the peak of a rollercoaster hill, the rollercoaster car goes from travelling upwards to flat and then to moving downward. this change in direction is known as acceleration and this acceleration makes riders feel as if a force is acting on them. Similarly, at the bottom of hills riders feel as if a force is pushing them down into their seats. These forces can be referred to in terms of gravity and are called gravitational forces, or g-forces. One 'g' is the force applied by gravity while standing on Earth at sea level.
Cars in rollercoasters always move the fastest at the bottom of hills. This is related to the concept that at the bottom of hills, all of the potential energy has been converted to kinetic energy, which leads to increased speed. Likewise, cars always travel the slowest at their highest point, which is the top of hills. Because of this, rollercoaster cars can only make it through loops if they have enough speed at the top of the loop. This minimum speed is referred to as the critical velocity, and is equal to the square root of the radius of the loop multiplied by the gravitational amount. (vc = 1/2rg)
Kinetic energy - the energy that an object possesses due to its motion
(dependent upon the mass of the object and the
speed of the object.).
As the cars of a rollercoaster loses much of its potential energy in accord
with the loss of height, and subsequently gains kinetic energy. The train of coaster cars speed up as they lose
height. Thus, their original potential energy (due to their large height) is
transformed into kinetic energy (revealed by their high speeds). Each gain in
height corresponds to the loss of speed as kinetic energy (due to speed) is
transformed into potential energy (due to height). Each loss in height
corresponds to a gain of speed as potential energy (due to height) is
transformed into kinetic energy (due to speed).
Potential energy - the energy that an object has due to its
position in a force field or that a system has due to the configuration of its parts. The type of
potential energy that is relevant to our rollercoaster is the gravitational potential energy of an object depending
on its vertical position. The higher the rollercoaster, the larger the
gravitational potential energy.
Forces - a
push or pull upon an object resulting from the object's interaction with
another object. The forces acting on the rollercoaster include gravity, friction
air resistance. The force of gravity is an internal force and thus any work done by it does not change the total energy of the train of cars. Friction would cause some of the potential energy the cars started off with to decrease, when the wheels
rub against the track. Air resistance also takes away some of the energy as
well.
Mechanical energy - mechanical energy is the energy that is
possessed by an object due to its motion or due to its position. Mechanical
energy can be either kinetic energy (energy of motion) or potential energy (stored
energy of position). This applies to a rollercoaster as it has gravitational
potential energy due to its height and kinetic energy as the rollercoaster travels
downhill.
Bibliography:
Bibliography:
- D'Agustino, Steven, Adaption, Resistance and Access to Instructional Technologies, Fordham, 2011, Print (Accessed 14/10/15)
- Hewitt, Paul G (1998). Instructor's Manual, Conceptual Physics. London: Addison Wesley. 398. (Accessed 14/10/15)
- Woodford, Chris. (2008) Rollercoasters. Retrieved from http://www.explainthatstuff.com/rollercoasters.html. (Accessed 14/10/15)
Hmmm, this is good, it'll help us with designing the rollercoaster as we can determine what form of energy is present at each component and what we need to do to maintain it.
ReplyDeleteBy the by, I don't actually recall learning about "mechanical" energy? Weren't the 8 main types heat, light, chemical, sound, elastic, potential, chemical and nuclear? Correct me if I'm wrong please.